ProEdit Awarded Technical Writing Contract

ProEdit has been awarded a contract with the U.S. District Court, Western District of North Carolina. ProEdit will perform technical writing, instructional design, graphic design, and publishing services for the Jury Evidence Recording System.

Technical Communication: Love It or Leave It

By Doug Davis

Our industry has more than its share of grumpy practitioners to whom the art of creating technical information means nothing more than a paycheck. They spend their days daydreaming of what their careers might have been if only this and that had happened. They go to sleep each night dreading the thought of another day working on that manual or with that person. To them I say, “Enough is enough.” Love it or leave it!

In this column, we are going to talk about why some technical communicators just plain hate their jobs. To aid me in my quest, I’m going to employ the aid of one of my favorite philosophers, Roseanne Rosannadanna, of Saturday Night Live fame.

“Well, Jane, it just goes to show you. It’s always something. If it’s not one thing, it’s another.”

We all know them and see them every day at work. They can find more reasons to complain about their job than there are ants in an anthill. “My boss is a jerk.” “I have to work too much overtime.” “My computer is too slow.” “This deadline is ridiculous.” Or my personal least favorite, “We don’t get any respect for what we do.” To them I say, “Shut up and get over it!” You are draining the life right out of your coworkers with your negativity.

Here’s the deal. Whether you want to admit it or not, everyone is ultimately self-employed. You are the one who decides how you are going to spend your day. Are you going to go to work today, or will you call in sick? Are you going to keep working at your current job, or will you go somewhere else? It doesn’t matter whether you are a permanent employee or a consultant. You are the only one that’s in charge of you.

You are probably familiar with the U.S. Army’s “An Army of One” slogan. Well, you are a “Company of One.” And you have a client ― your employer. If you can’t stand working for your employer any more, don’t complain. Fire them! Go somewhere else!

“Boy, Mr. Feder, you sure do ask a lot of stupid questions for a guy from New Jersey.”

I would encourage you to reevaluate your relationship with your client/employer at least once a year. If you work at a company that conducts annual performance reviews, this is a good time to do this. Your employer is taking this opportunity to assess how well you are doing for the company. It only stands to reason that this would also be a good time for you to assess whether you want to sign up for another year working with them. Question your assumptions about your job and your career. Give yourself a reality check.

For some, this can be very empowering. However, you have to accept the fact that you are accountable for your decisions. You are in control of every aspect of your career. Not your employer. If you hate your job, you have only yourself to blame.

“What are ya tryin' to do, make me sick?!”

If you ask technical communicators if they enjoy their jobs, one of the comments that makes me want to power barf is, “Well, what can you say? It pays the bills.”

I think this is the worst reason in the world to stay at a job. You spend such a huge part of your life at work ― is paying the bills really that fulfilling? When your days are numbered, do you really want to look back on your life’s accomplishments as a series of debits and credits to your bank account?

We live in a time of unprecedented prosperity. There is a whole world out there full of careers that you can be happy doing, if you are wired up to be a happy person. If you read this column and you are one of those grumpy practitioners who just enjoy being disgruntled, then I can’t help you. Perhaps nobody can.

However, if you are unhappy in your job and honestly want things to change, then there are ways to dig yourself out of the hole you’ve stumbled into. Start with some good books. My favorites are What Color is Your Parachute? by Richard Nelson Bolles and Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren. Also, it may be worthwhile to seek out a therapist or good friend to help you assess where you are and where you’d like to be.

The bottom line is to not just stay in that unhappy place. Make up your mind to do something about it. Make your job into what you want it to be.

I’d like to close by explaining why I love my job. First, I love my coworkers. It sounds corny, but we are really like extended family. Second, I love my job because I have an insatiable curiosity about how things work. Much to my family’s dismay, I love to watch TV shows about how this, that, or the other works. I love to tour assembly plants and see products coming together. I love talking to people about what they do. My heroes are Edison, Einstein, and the Wright Brothers. The quest to build a better mousetrap just fascinates me.

That’s why I love my job, and I’m not planning to leave anytime soon.

Who’s Next? Making Your Job Outsource-proof

By Doug Davis

Fellow technical communicators, what I’m about to say is not going to win me any popularity contests. It’s the 1000-pound gorilla in the living room. It’s the emperor’s new clothes. Here it is. Ready? Outsourcing is here to stay. But why? Because a whole lot of the time, those outsourcing relationships work out just fine for the companies that choose to pursue them.

Of course, if you end up on the wrong end of a pink slip because of some outsourcing arrangement, you are in for one of the most traumatic times of your life. But if you stay ahead of the prevailing wind, there are some things you can do to help prevent your job from being the one that’s axed.

And just to liven things up a bit, I’ve included some song lyrics in italics. 


In the Beginning...

“The change it had to come. We knew it all along.”

Where did all of this outsourcing stuff come from anyway? The outsourcing fire was fanned by two big trends in our industry. The first was economics. During the nineties, the cost of experienced technical communicators kept going up, up, and up. Then, when profits within the technology sector started to fall, bean counters started looking for ways to cut costs. Outsourcing was perceived to be the answer to their financial woes.

The second big reason was the advent of telecommuting. In our industry’s eagerness to embrace telecommuting, we unwittingly set ourselves up for our jobs to be outsourced. The downside of being able to telecommute is that jobs that are able to be done remotely can be done by someone who is, well, remote. Low-cost computers, high-bandwidth Internet connections, standardization of toolsets, and countless presentations to upper management on the benefits of telecommuting set us up for outsourcing. Ready … aim … shoot your own foot.

So, for those of you whose jobs haven’t been outsourced, what can you do to help reduce the likelihood that your job will be outsourced? Here are six techniques you can use to help outsource-proof your job.

Technique 1. Ex-telecommute yourself.

“I’ll move myself and my family aside.”

If you are a telecommuter, you can easily find yourself out of the rumor loop. Make sure to have regular face time at the office and around the water cooler. Keep your ear to the cubicle wall. Learn what’s happening in other parts of the company. If outsourcing is happening elsewhere, be on red alert. It’s probably being considered on a much more widespread basis.

Technique 2. Suck up big time.

“Smile and grin at the change all around.”

When you were in school, did the teacher’s pet ever get expelled from school?  Hmmm?  It’s not pretty, but sometimes it just pays to do extra stuff for your boss. Offer to edit his/her memos or help with presentations (after hours, of course, lest they think you don’t have enough real work to do). Through doing extra stuff for your boss, you’ll get some extra face time and may even get a tip that something’s afoot. Let them vent to you about the stresses and problems they are encountering, but be sure to keep quiet about what you learn. Information is a precious thing until everyone knows it. Make your move to another job if you need to, and then try to help your coworkers. It’s like what they say on airplanes, “Put your mask on before helping others.”

Technique 3. “I’d like mine with extra SMEs, please.”

“I’ll get all my papers and smile at the sky.”

If you’ve read any of my previous columns, you know that I’m a real advocate of technical communicators becoming subject matter experts. If you know your company’s products and services inside and out, it’s going to be hard for your employers to see you walk out the door with a cardboard box. One reason is that you may take your cardboard box right across the street to their top competitor. Knowing the industry you write about is much more important than knowing about the writing industry.

Technique 4. “Wrong, wrong, wrong … better … nope still wrong.”

“Sit in judgment of all wrong.”

It’s a common scenario for companies to outsource the writing functions but retain employees for editorial and quality control functions. If you think your department could be the target for future outsourcing, it would be wise to align your job duties as closely as possible with that of a lead editor or the last check before the work goes out the door.

Technique 5. Get bossy

“And the men who spurred us on …”

In most cases, the manager is the last person standing. Writers are more likely to get outsourced than editors. Editors are more likely to get outsourced than managers. But, managers, be forewarned. Always be a manager who does real work. Edit something. Write a chapter now and then. Keep your skills current so you will be viewed as a utility player, not as overhead.

Technique 6. “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.”

“Meet the new boss. The same as the old boss.”

Let’s say that all has failed, and your job is about to be outsourced. Consider contacting the firm that’s going to provide the services to your employer and inquire about a job. You may be a very valuable commodity to the outsourcer because you know the stuff they are going to need in order to do the work, and you have an immediate project to work on for them.

Here’s one last thought on the subject of outsourcing. Don’t burn bridges with your former employers. They may need you back later. Then, it will be time for you to decide whether working with them is a good match for your long-term strategic goals. 

(Song lyrics, "Won't Get Fooled Again," Written by Pete Townsend, Performed by The Who. On Wikipedia)

© Copyright 2010, Doug Davis

Using Readability Tools to Improve Web Content

By Doug Davis


Like all Web content writers, I'm always looking for simpler ways
to make my job easier.


Readability tools help me manage two of my biggest challenges, which are:

• Holding the reader's attention. You have to keep them reading long enough to get your message across.
• Maintaining a consistent voice. You need a lot of content on your site, but you don't really want your site to sound like different people wrote it.

Let's take a quick look at how readability tools work, and how they can work for you.

How Readability Tools Work

One of the things I always do before publishing my content is to check the Readability Score. Readability scores are based on a U.S. elementary school grade level. For Web content targeted at adult readers, I recommend shooting for somewhere between a 7th and 8th grade reading level.


The Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level score is the easiest to use, because it's the one used in MS Word. When you finish running the MS Word spelling and grammar checker on your document, the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level score is displayed.


Here's the equation that calculates the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level score:


(.39 x ASL) + (11.8 x ASW) - 15.59


where:

• ASL = Average sentence length. This is the number of words divided by the number of sentences.
• ASW = Average number of syllables per word. This is the number of syllables divided by the number of words.

So, it's pretty easy to see that shorter sentences with shorter words lowers the Readability Score.

Making the Most of Readability Tools

After you write the first draft of a new page, run the spelling and grammar checker and fix any obvious problems. Then, look at the Readability Score. This will give you a quick idea as to how deeply you need to edit on your next pass through the page. If the score is 13, then you'll need to go back to the document with a meat axe. If the score is 9, then a laser scalpel will suffice.


When you're editing for readability, you are shortening sentences and shortening words.


This can have two positive effects on your site:

• Longer Visits—You are making it easier for the reader to read your content. The easier the content is to read, the longer the visitor will spend reading it. (By the way, this article has a 6th grade readability score, and you've almost read it all. See what I mean?)
• Consistent Voice—If you are using a team of writers, require that their content be written to a specific grade level. Look at any style guide and you will see page after page of specific words to use and how to use them. However, from a practical perspective, it's tough to get writers to use style guides. By moving to shorter words, you are actually limiting the number of words that the writers can use. You are knocking out countless big words like "utilize" and replacing them with little words like "use." By requiring them to write to a specific score, you also help them write with a specific voice.

Effective use of readability scores will help you score a bulls-eye with your readers!

© Copyright 2010, Doug Davis